


Onscreen Therapy

by D_f_m22



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 23:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_f_m22/pseuds/D_f_m22
Summary: Missy notices something wrong with one of the Doctor's students as she marks their essay and wants to do something.Also known as the time I shamelessly inserted one of my human AU characters into a Vault fic.





	Onscreen Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated, this is in lieu of Sunday Snippets. 
> 
> Normal service to return next week, so get your prompts in :)

“Frances isn’t well.” 

Missy’s voice was the first thing that alerted the Doctor to the fact that the Time Lady had finished her shower. Opening his eyes, he watched as Missy crossed the living area draped in his old, time-worn dressing gown. The once bright red question marks had faded and the white fluff was grey, but he knew the ancient item of clothing had become a firm favourite of his friend’s. He’d only let her borrow it as something warm to wear when she contracted a particularly nasty virus during her first year in the Vault, but she had since claimed it as her own. It wasn’t only the warmth that Missy had taken a liking to. On the top left collar of the dressing gown there was a tiny yellow stain- a souvenir that one of his babies had left on it centuries ago. As was customary of the two Time Lords, neither Missy nor the Doctor could agree on which of the latter’s three Time Tots had been responsible for the sickly memento. The Doctor was convinced it had been his eldest son in the twilight hours of an otherwise uninteresting night. Missy, on the other hand, swears blind that she was there for the incident. It had been his youngest daughter when she was just a few days old. His wife had been upstairs recovering and Missy had been helping to keep the older two amused. Sat in the conservatory at the crack of dawn, she’d had both older children on her lap. His eldest son had been helping her to tease the Doctor about the question mark dressing gown while his middle daughter had been playing with Missy’s new beard. At the time, Missy had just regenerated into her third body and it was the first time she had been male. It was a great novelty to everyone but especially to the two little ones who had only ever known her as Auntie Kosch. All three of them had stopped their respective teasing and beard stroking when the newest addition to the Sigma clan let out the tiniest of hiccups and spewed all over her father’s dressing gown. Apparently, Missy had been delighted when the Doctor’s son had mimicked her perfectly and declared what an improvement the baby sick had made to the robe. The Doctor was ashamed to admit that he didn’t remember the event at all. He wished he did, but it had been so long ago and so much had happened. Missy had recounted the story so fondly that he hoped it was true. For once, he wanted her to be right. 

The sudden weight of Missy’s feet in his lap dragged him from the labyrinth of his mind. He looked up at the Time Lady, smiling fondly at the way a strand of her hair had frizzed even more from her steamy shower. She looked happy, but there was something about her eyes that betrayed her. There was the hint of an emotion that he hadn’t seen in his friend’s eyes for a time untold- concern for someone other than herself. Tilting his head to one side, he sat up straighter as he tried to recall what Missy had said just minutes earlier. He had been so caught up in his memories that he was now worried he had missed something important. In the Vault, Missy had been more easily put off when the Doctor unintentionally ignored her. She was much more sensitive than he remembered her being in past lives, she seemed to take it as a personal rejection rather than what was really just a simple distraction on his part. He had to work on that- making sure he was listening to what Missy was saying. There were oftentimes she wouldn’t repeat something he should know twice. It was how he’d ended up missing the fact she had contracted chicken pox and the reason he’d found the Vault flooded one Saturday morning a few months ago. So, with that in mind, the Doctor wondered what it was that she had been saying this time. Someone wasn’t well…What was their name….Frankie…Fiona? 

“Frances,” Missy provided for him and the Doctor finally noticed the familiar tug that was at the back of his mind. Another thing he had to get better at noticing. “Her name’s Frances and she isn’t well.”

“Get out of my mind, Missy. You shouldn’t be in there.” 

Missy complied quickly, flicking her wrist with a flourish to show how simple the notoriously complex mental task had been for someone of her calibre. 

“How am I ever supposed to know if you’re listening to me, Doctor?” Missy asked. 

Admittedly, she had a point. 

“I’m working on it. It’s my New Year’s Resolution,” the Doctor offered. 

Missy scoffed. “It’s July.” 

She shouldn’t know that, but the Doctor decided to bypass that information for the time being.

“It’s New Year somewhere in the Universe. Anyway, who’s Frances?”

As the Doctor spoke, he leaned forward, brow creased in concern. His eyes scanned Missy’s face, searching for any sign that the once common madness that might lead her to make up imaginary friends had returned. 

“She’s in your Introduction to Physics course,” Missy said with a shrug. “Really, do you know any of their names?” 

The Doctor gawped at Missy. 

“How—”

“I’ve been marking essays for that class all academic year,” Missy explained. 

“The essays are anonymous,” the Doctor stated in confusion. “You shouldn’t know any of their names.” 

“Oh that,” Missy said. That casual flick of her wrist returning as she smugly settled in to explain her latest triumph. “Well, it was simple really. I looked for patterns in writing style- she starts every introduction the same way but somehow manages to make physics from a human point of view mildly engaging. I chuckled twice, snorted three times and belly laughed once while reading her last end of term essay. Even I’ll concede, that’s quite an achievement for a human.” 

 

The Doctor looked up at Missy tiredly, making a circular motion with his left hand. He looked like a director trying to wrap a scene with a particularly demanding actress as he coaxed Missy back on to the topic at hand. 

“Right and how exactly did her witty writing style lead to you discover her identity and subsequently jump to the conclusion that something is now wrong with her…You do know that you’re not Nancy Drew, don’t you?” 

Missy’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head in confusion. She hated when the Doctor made a human reference that she didn’t understand. The Doctor added a point to the mental score card he was keeping. Doctor: 1, Missy:…Well, that wasn’t important, what was important was that he was catching up. In retaliation, Missy’s know-it-all wrist flourish returned. If she carried on that way, she was going to break her wrist- an action that would rather undermine her attempt at nonchalant smugness. 

“Details, details,” Missy trilled. “You never pay this much attention to details when you’re attempting one of your clumsy rescue missions. More to the point, you nearly never bother asking me for any of the details of how I survived my latest death. Why are details suddenly of such importance?” 

Because I’m not convinced, you’re not planning something, and it really concerns me when you bother learning the names of humans. 

The Doctor kept that thought to himself, noting that Missy hadn’t taken it well the last time he had questioned her intentions. 

 

“At this stage, we’d both be more surprised if you didn’t survive your latest death,” the Doctor quipped. “Anyway, I know how you survived your latest death- I was there on one of my clumsy rescue missions that you’re so eager to slate. Saving you, in case you’d forgotten.” 

“That was a brush with death dear, not an actual death. Do try to keep up, I know teaching those Earthlings is turning your brain to mush, but this is ridiculous.”

For a minute, the Doctor considered chastising Missy for her blatant speciesism. It was only a minute, however, as he quickly realised some things were a waste of breath and if they opened that can of worms, he was never going to find out who Frances was and why Missy was so uncharacteristically concerned for her. 

“So, I’m assuming you figured out Frances’ identity by bypassing the University’s security system?” 

“But, of course,” Missy nodded, her irritating hand flourish returning once more. “It was hilariously easy- haven’t you managed it yet? Making an educated guess, I’d say there are at least four Zygons on campus. Three students, one lecturer.” 

“No, I haven’t managed it yet because I haven’t tried. It’s confidential, Missy!” The Doctor said in frustration. His mind wondered back to the previous spring when he had had to spend three whole days sitting in a conference room listening to the new laws on GDPR regulations. Never mind being trapped inside his own confession dial, that had been his own personal hell. Suddenly, the Doctor’s expression froze as he registered what Missy had said. “Zygons- here? I bet that Peter’s one of them—No! Do you know what? That’s not important right now. Frances…Back to Frances. You’ve hacked into the University’s records, broken several rules but you now know that one of my students is called Frances and you think that there is something wrong with her?” 

“Correct,” Missy nodded. “Tres Bien. One gold star for finally catching up.”

The Time Lady examined her nails, crossing her ankles in the Doctor’s lap and puffing out her cheeks in a mock show of exasperation at how long the whole charade was taking. In reality, she was loving it. 

“Humans pick up colds all the time, or she could have been hungover while she was writing her last essay,” The Doctor offered. “I’m impressed that you’re concerned, but I think you’re worrying unnecessarily.” 

“Nope,” Missy said tiredly. “Wrong again.” 

In a sudden flurry of movement, Missy stood and strode over to the kitchen area. The Doctor briefly mourned the warmth of her feet in his lap but quickly turned around to observe whatever it was Missy was now doing. He watched silently as she knelt in the far corner and opened one of the kitchen cabinets that wasn’t bio locked. With purpose, Missy retrieved two pastel coloured box files from the unit and closed it before walking over to the kitchen table, dropping the files onto the table with a loud thud. Standing up, the Doctor approached the table. He watched cautiously as Missy began to pull out several neatly typed essays. Each essay had an identical student ID number and a circled number on the top left of the page that indicated the received mark. Comments and ticks were scattered across the left-hand margin in the familiar cursive writing that the Doctor recognised as Missy’s own handwriting. Some of the comments were expectedly scathing but there was a surprising amount of ticks and encouraging comments. There was also an abundance of doodles- ranging from a cat chasing a ball of yarn to a stick man being de-capitated. Evidently, Missy had been hit by moments of boredom while marking the student essays. All in all, however, it was clear that Missy had marked the essays with great integrity. It made the Doctor fondly reminisce about the five happy years they had both spent as teachers at the Academy. 

“Look at this,” Missy announced as she spread the essays out in a fan shape across the empty table. Her authoritative voice once again dragged the Doctor back to the present and he watched with interest as she pulled a pen from her hair and pointed at each essay one by one. “October 2016, first essay she’s ever submitted and it’s very good for someone who is still tripping over their umbilical cord. Good structure, valid argument- even if it was a little unoriginal. I gave it a solid 68. Now, fast forward a few months and we’re in January 2017. This one was good, very good. Structure still good but this time she made arguments that even managed to interest me. I gave it a 79 and I haven’t given any other student a grade like that. Not even that third year one who I’m convinced is going to become a mastermind in the world of bio-warfare.”

The Doctor nodded, following Missy’s biro pen along the tops of the essays as she tapped each one meaningfully. His eyebrows shot up as she mentioned the third-year student and he filed that particular piece of information away for later use before returning his attention to Missy. 

“She’s a good student, I think I remember her now. Is she the one with the blonde bob?” The Doctor enquired. 

“Blonde Bob?” Missy questioned, head tilting in confusion as her face contorted into an expression of disgust. “Doctor I have no idea if she’s selected a mate named Bob and I certainly don’t know what his hair colour is! Honestly, you should know by now that I don’t concern myself in the sordid business of the human reproductive chain.” 

Biting back a laugh at his friend’s misunderstanding, the Doctor shook his head. “I mean her hair. It’s cut short, they call that style a bob.” 

Missy sniffed and attempted to cover her embarrassment by looking back down at the essays with an increased interest. 

“You’re not thinking about the right student. Frances’ hair is long- about the same length as mine but it’s mousy brown,” Missy said eventually. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what she looks like, what matters is that her grades are taking a nose dive. She maintained a respectable 70 average throughout first year, but since coming back for her second year, they’ve dipped to the low 60s. I even had to give her a 58 on the latest submission!” 

The Doctor watched Missy, surprised but impressed by the clear concern that she was showing for Frances. 

“The courses get harder each year, Missy,” the Doctor reasoned. “She might just be struggling with the jump to second year.” 

“It’s not just her grades,” Missy replied. “Look at this…” 

The Time Lady reached for the second box file, opening it up and revealing a selection of print outs from one of the more common social media sites that the Doctor knew to be popular with the younger humans. Suddenly, the Doctor found himself worrying that Missy’s concern for Frances was less worry and more a new obsession. It never ended well when Missy became obsessed with a human…

“Missy, this isn’t healthy. How have you even managed to print all this out?” The Doctor asked softly. 

“With my printer,” Missy explained; brazenly admitting to owning a forbidden product in the Vault. “And I’m not stalking her, dear. I only started looking at her social media sites when her grades dropped. I wanted to see what was going on with her and thank goodness I did!” 

The Doctor looked down at the print outs, taking in each page in greater detail as he did. Finally, he started to realise that Missy might be onto something. Over a few months, Frances’ profile had gone from that of a bubbly student that was always out with her friends to that of a reclusive girl. In her most recent pictures, Frances had lost considerable weight, her hair was greasy and there were dark circles under her eyes.   
“That is—” The Doctor began, only to be cut off by Missy instantly. 

“It’s concerning,” Missy said bluntly. “Look at this, this picture was taken last month- the height of summer- and she’s in long sleeves. Why? I bet she’s self harming. We both know when I first started that I lived in that horrible red jumper, despite Gallifrey experiencing one of the hottest summer’s on record.”

The Doctor cringed. He hated being reminded of that summer. 

“We don’t know that for certain, Missy,” the Doctor tried to reason. 

“I do,” Missy said certainly. “And even if I didn’t, I’ve hacked into her medical records. She’s been prescribed anti-depressants and is on a waiting list to see a counsellor.”

At this stage, the Doctor gave up even trying to scald Missy for hacking into confidential records and instead went along with the conversation. 

“Right, well it looks like things are in order…”

“They’re not,” Missy shot back in annoyance. Her voice had that sharp edge to it that it usually had when she was deadly serious about something. “What if she tops herself before she even makes it onto the waiting list. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

The Doctor looked at Missy in exasperation. 

“What do you want me to do about it?” He asked, running a hand over his face. 

“Talk to her!” Missy exclaimed as though it was the most obvious thing in the universe. To her it was. “Ask her what’s wrong, that’ll get you lots of brownie points for looking after student wellbeing!” 

“Missy…” The Doctor began to argue with the Time Lady but quickly realised that what Missy was saying was right. More importantly, Missy was showing compassion for another sentient being- that hadn’t happened for centuries. Why was he suddenly trying to discourage that? “Missy, sometimes you really are a genius. You’re right. You are so right.” 

Standing up, the Doctor took Missy’s face between his hands and kissed her nose playfully. Her face scrunched up in mock annoyance, but she was clearly delighted with his reaction. 

“Quite right too,” Missy said in response to the Doctor’s uncharacteristic outburst. “So, you’ll talk to her?” 

“Yes, yes. I’ll do it straight away,” the Doctor paused and looked at his watch. “On second thoughts, it’s 11pm. Maybe I’ll leave it until Monday.” 

“Probably best,” Missy agreed. “Old space granddad turning up on young woman’s doorstep at night, isn’t a great look.” 

XXXXXXXX

“Um…Hi, I’m Frances, the Doctor put me in touch with you. He said you were doing some wellbeing mentoring and…” 

The young human currently talking to Missy from inside her I Pad screen trailed off, sheepishly pushing a strand of mousy brown hair behind her left ear. The Time Lady licked her lips, her own nervous tick showing itself as the day she had waited some time for suddenly arrived. Missy’s assessment of Frances’ wellbeing had been scarily accurate. Nearly as soon as the Doctor had questioned her about it, the young human had broken down in tears. At a loss of what to do, the Doctor came up with what he thought was the perfect solution: Missy could mentor Frances. The human needed someone to talk to and Missy needed to hone her empathetic skills. The Time Lady had also seemed quite willing to help the young human- clearly having grown rather found of her. 

Missy found herself coughing and looking over the I pad to the Doctor before answering Frances. She needed encouragement, the type that only the Doctor could give. Dutifully, the Doctor nodded and smiled at her. Missy’s eyes flitted back down to the screen. 

“Hi Frances, I’m Missy…”


End file.
